1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for mobile satellite communications and method of controlling communications route, and more particularly, to a satellite transmission/reception apparatus capable of controlling communications routes such that satellite signals are received along mutually different communications routes ceaselessly, and a method for controlling a communications route.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, in order to transmit IP communications data via an existing bi-directional satellite transmission system, the IP communications data is encapsulated using an MPE/MPEG-2 TS packet structure and then transmitted according to a particular modulation scheme. Such an MPE (Multi-Protocol Encapsulation) method, which has been proposed to transmit communications data by using a digital broadcast transmission/reception system at an early stage, is a method applying a data communications protocol to a digital broadcasting system to allow a receiver to process communications data transmitted via a broadcasting network in the same manner as data received via a communications network such as Ethernet.
The most basic method for selecting a new network interface to perform handover in such mobile communications is switching to an interface with a high received signal strength by using received signal strength indication (RSSI), to which determination bases such as a QoS factor, user preference, network availability, and the like, may be added to improve a cost function for network selection. However, these methods, focusing only on a network switching time or its method, have a problem in that a seamless data transmission in IP layers, according to handover, is not guaranteed.